


This Time Is Ours

by rainingover



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Sports, Dramarama!verse, Falling In Love, Fate & Destiny, Illegal Time Travelling, Kendo, Light Angst, Loyalty, M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-11
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2019-01-31 22:34:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12691542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainingover/pseuds/rainingover
Summary: His coach scolds him for being distracted at his next training session, but he can’t even get angry, because it's true, heisdistracted.Hoseok distracts Hyunwoo for the next seven days, and all the days after that too.(Or, Hoseok visits 2017 once a week and Hyunwoo is there waiting for him every single time).





	This Time Is Ours

**Author's Note:**

> The Showho scenes in the Dramarama MV gave me so many feelings ;;;
> 
> I hope someone enjoys this <3

The first time they meet, Hyunwoo doesn’t even ask Hoseok his name. Hoseok is just standing there in the middle of the room, in a full uniform. Hyunwoo is a little surprised to see someone else here - he’s usually the only one here on a Sunday, training alone when everyone else is spending their time in other ways. But he does have a competition coming up, and he could do with a proper training session today, so he just accepts the surprise visitor, gives Hoseok a quick nod and says, “Hey. Where’s coach?” 

He doesn’t get an answer.

Hyunwoo doesn’t mind this. When he’s at the gym, he doesn’t need formalities, small-talk or smiles. He needs concentration and a worthy opponent, and nothing to distract from his practice.

He waits while Hoseok changes, trying not to look, and finds a text from his coach who can’t make it. He texts him back to let him know he’s found someone to practise against anyway, and his coach seems surprised.

When Hoseok turns to face him, he has the determined look of someone who wants to win, and Hyunwoo likes that. It’s inside of him too - a fire that licks up his spine and into every bone in his body.

Hoseok is a worthy opponent - he’s strong and he’s skilled and Hyunwoo is sure his coach can’t have sent him, because he doesn’t hype Hyunwoo up, doesn’t give him tips or compliments or talk about his next competition, he just spars with him, and again, and again, until he’s so out of breath it hurts. It’s best and worst he’s felt in a long time.

He tells Hoseok this, as they change afterwards, and Hoseok smiles and says, “Should I come back, then?”

Hyunwoo nods. “Definitely,” he says. “Same time next week?” And he’s excited about his sport for the first time in a while.

Hyunwoo feels like he’s waited a long time to find a partner so perfectly matched, but he’s learnt that good things come to those who wait.

\--

The next week, Hoseok is there before Hyunwoo arrives, and this time he’s ready in his robes, waiting for him. He waits until after they’ve fought before he brings it up, sits back on his elbows as they recover and says, “You aren’t a member here, are you?”

Hyunwoo knows this because his of the look his coach had given him when he mentioned dropping into the dojo the previous Sunday. “A new member, around your age? No, definitely not,” he’d said, and Hyunwoo had said something about getting mixed up and had changed the subject.

“I’m a member here,” Hoseok replies. “You just-- we don't know each other.” 

“Really? Because I’ve trained here for years.” Hyunwoo rubs at his chin. “What’s your name?”

“Shin Hoseok. But it won’t be in the log,” Hoseok adds. He looks uncomfortable, and he stares at his folded tracksuit on the bench across the room, his jewellery: ring, bracelet, watch, placed on top.

Hyunwoo thinks about this. “Well, you’re really good. You should join properly, get yourself registered. Come to some of the weeknight sessions. I’ll introduce you to my coach.”

Hoseok looks away. “Maybe,” he says.

Hyunwoo knows Hoseok won’t, though. He just wishes he also knew why. “Don’t worry,” he says. “Your secret is safe with me. Whatever it is.”

Hoseok leaves the building without saying goodbye when Hyunwoo is hanging up his protective clothing, and he doesn’t get the chance to ask if Hoseok will be there again at the same time next week. 

But, thankfully, he is.

\--

The first time that Hoseok leaves in front of him, Hyunwoo wonders if he’s finally lost his mind. Hoseok is there - in the room, promising to be there the next week, fastening his watch carefully onto his left wrist - and then he just  _isn’t_.

And he hasn't used the door.

Hyunwoo spends the entire week trying to make sense of this. It’s not like he doesn’t know time travel is possible - that was proven by a group of scientists based in central Europe five years ago, who’d modelled their devices an old fashioned alarm clock and a pocket watch. But it was also proven to be a dangerous tool, one that most world leaders don’t want the general public to have a hold of. 

The conspiracy theory forums he stumbles across in the following week, when he’s researching every instance of known time travel to have been done, suggests that it isn’t a coincidence that most of those scientists - including the elusive Chae Hyungwon - are now in prison. Hyunwoo has never been into conspiracy theories, it’s not him to really care that much about things that don’t affect his everyday life, but this one he could buy into. 

His coach scolds him for being distracted at his next training session, but he can’t even get angry, because it's true, he _is_  distracted. 

Hoseok distracts Hyunwoo for the next seven days, and all the days after that too. 

\--

He’s waiting for Hoseok the next weekend, focused and ready to train as usual, because that’s the routine, and that’s all he can think to do, but afterwards, when they’ve changed into their tracksuits, he picks up Hoseok’s watch from the bench where he’s left it to shower. It’s pretty old fashioned, like something his father would wear, and from far away it passes as a regular family heirloom. Up close, however, Hyunwoo can tell it’s not a timepiece at all. 

“This is how you travel here, isn’t it?” He tries to look like he doesn’t feel awkward talking about this stuff, but he knows he isn’t pulling it off. “So, you  _are_  a member here… But not yet. Right?”

Hoseok is staring at his hand. “You’re gripping that pretty tightly. I-- If it breaks…”

“Oh.” He releases the watch and holds it out to Hoseok. Sometimes he forgets his own strength, his coach tells him it’s one of his biggest weaknesses, as dumb as that sounds for a sportsman. “Sorry.”

Hoseok puts it straight into his bag and takes a breath. “I've trained here since I was a a kid,” he says. “Back then, there were - there still are - photos of notable kendoka who have trained here on the walls. In the kids classes, the teachers would tell us about their careers, about the struggles they had and how they overcame them to become champions. To inspire us.” He looks up, and Hyunwoo wonders if he is insinuating what Hyunwoo thinks he is. Hoseok is  _here_ , training with him, risking fuck knows what to come here for two hours a week. “They told yours too.. I guess it stuck with me. It still does. That's-- that's why I'm here."

Hyunwoo selfishly wonders how good at this he is going to get to be pictured on the walls of his dojo some indefinite time in the future. “Why am I up there? Don’t tell me I make it to the World Championships. Do I rank in the top eight?”

Hoseok smiles. “Actually, you’re just so handsome they stuck you in with the famous kendoka to level out the attractiveness.”

Hyunwoo hardly hears the compliment behind the weight of what it means. That Hoseok is a  _time traveller,_  that he doesn’t exist yet. That Hyunwoo is considered a champion of the dojo. 

“I read that all of the time warp devices were taken by the US government.” He says. “I've been doing some research after last week. They locked up Chae Hyungwon and took away his company’s funding, and made tampering with time illegal.”

“Oh, my watch isn't an original device. No, he's been on the run for a while now. He didn’t make this watch until last year.” Hoseok gives him a wry smile. He looks tired, and Hyunwoo suddenly feels bad. Talking about this stuff probably isn’t what Hoseok came here for. He came here for Kendo. And for  _him_ , apparently. “In 2046.”

“Bullshit.” It comes out of Hyunwoo’s mouth before he can stop it, but Hoseok doesn’t seem phased by his reaction. “I mean, I believe you, I just-- twenty  _forty-six?_ ”

Hoseok laughs.

Before he returns to the forties, Hoseok hesitates, his finger ready on the crown of his watch. “When you thought I was just training here without permission and you said my secret was safe with you… Does that go for this secret too?” He asks. And he looks so apprehensive that Hyunwoo feels guilty for having brought it up at all, as if he could have just pretended not to notice the fact that Hoseok isn’t from here all along. But he couldn’t have, they both know that.

So, he looks Hoseok straight in the eye and nods because it’s all he can do.

They don’t talk about when Hoseok comes from again for a while after that.

\--

  
Sometimes they don't talk at all, not a single word. These sessions remind Hyunwoo of their first meeting: the muted conversation, the mutual understanding. But they're different now in a myriad of ways. Now they're more important to him, now they're everything, the few hours that he spends every other waking hour of his week waiting for. And not just for the competition of fighting someone else so skilled.

Hyunwoo kneels and waits, already in his robes. He's so in the zone, so focused on his game, on his breathing and the striking techniques he's been practising with coach during the week.

Until Hoseok appears, and then he can concentrate on nothing else  _but_  him. 

\--

Hoseok rolls onto his front and leans on his elbow. 

They’ve given up on practise today, Hyunwoo’s ankle is playing up, and he should be resting it - weekend practise banned by his coach. But then again his coach doesn’t know about his secret sessions with the time traveller that comes to the dojo on Sunday mornings. Thank goodness. 

"You know,” Hoseok says, looking at him with intent that Hyunwoo can’t quite work out. “You've never asked me why I keep coming back here."

"Don't you come here for the same reason I do?” Hyunwoo replies. “Because you love Kendo?" And, okay, that isn’t strictly speaking the only reason that Hyunwoo is here and waiting every week. He does love Kendo, but Sunday is the only day he doesn’t see his coach, and it’s the day he could be -  _should_ be - doing his laundry and going out with friends and, according to his mother, dating a nice polite girl. It’s just… If he does those things, he can’t see Hoseok. And that’s important to him now.

"Yeah," Hoseok says, his lips curled up into an amused smile. “Because I love Kendo.  _And_ because I'm a sucker for a sad story.”

“A sad story?” Hyunwoo asks.

“The ones about the champions that the teachers used to tell us as kids to push us." Hoseok grins. "Stories about heartbreak and determination are a good motivator apparently.”

Hyunwoo thinks about this. “I think _you're_ a good motivator,” he says, and he thinks about the smile that Hoseok gives him all week.

\--

Another Sunday comes and goes, and then another, and another and another, and soon the weekends are all Hyunwoo can think about.

There’s a Sunday somewhere down the line, one that blurs into the next, when Hyunwoo picks up the watch again, and places it on his bare wrist. He hasn’t looked at it up close since the day he confronted Hoseok about the whole disappearing act and found out his new friend wasn’t technically born yet. He glances at Hoseok to make sure it’s okay that he’s touching it, and Hoseok just smiles at him. Hyunwoo likes it when Hoseok smiles because of him, and he’s been thinking more about why that might be. He’s also been thinking about why he has rejected his aunt’s invitations to her last three dinners: all thinly veiled attempts to set him up with girls from the neighbourhood.

He thinks these two things  _might_ just be related.

"It just looks like a watch,” Hyunwoo murmurs, looking back down at it, so he doesn’t get too distracted by the warm smile in front of him.

"It  _is_  just a watch." Hoseok runs his fingers over the face of the watch. His fingers brush Hyunwoo’s wrist. "It just happens to be able to warp space and time too."

Hyunwoo laughs. "You could be using it to go  _anywhere_.”

"You can’t go just anywhere,” Hoseok replies, though he doesn’t elaborate any further. “There are laws.”

Hyunwoo says, “Time travel itself is against the law though."

"Not the laws that that the government set. I’m talking about the laws  _of_ time travel. The laws that Chae Hyungwon set when he created the devices." He moves his hand away suddenly and says, "Want to go for another round? Or have I tired you out too much?"

There is something in how he says it that makes Hyunwoo blush, but he puts the watch back down gently, and manages to look Hoseok right in the eye as he replies, "Try me."

\--

Hyunwoo waits, and Hoseok arrives, albeit a few minutes later than usual. Hyunwoo kind of hates that he keeps so close an eye on the time - that he is waiting with baited breath, heart racing with excitement at the exact same time every single week in anticipation of this visit. That it’s all he’s started to care about. That he knows exactly why he isn’t interested in any of those girls his family want him to go out with. 

Hoseok: it’s all Hoseok now. 

So, the relief on his face must be evident when Hoseok appears in the Dojo. “Did you think I’d stood you up?” he asks, unzipping his tracksuit jacket to change into the robes that are waiting for him, that Hyunwoo stores in his own assigned locker for his unofficial guest opponent every weekend.

“What?” Hyunwoo looks up from his position on the floor, just as Hoseok strips off his jacket completely, and his head is so out of the game, he can barely remember why they’re here. Because Hoseok is breathtaking, and he’s everything Hyunwoo has never wanted before, but wants so much right now.

And not just because of his love for Kendo, no matter how much he pretends.

Hoseok isn’t looking at his face, thank goodness. “I wouldn’t do that, you know,” he says. “If you were worried about it.”

“Good, because I gave up my aunt’s best home cooking for this today.”

Hoseok shrugs on his robes. “You gave that up for  _this_?” He asks and he looks genuinely surprised. Touched, even. It makes Hyunwoo wonder if Hoseok hasn’t been able to see how much Hyunwoo cares about this between them at all. It makes him want to make sure Hoseok knows, even if he can’t quite find the words to articulate how he feels yet.

“You give up thirty years to come and see me every week, don’t you?” He says and stands up to move behind Hoseok and fasten his tare at the back of his waist for him.

“Officially, I kind of gain thirty years for the two hours a week I come back here,” Hoseok points out, his back to Hyunwoo now. “But if I had an aunt who cooked for me, maybe things would be different.” He looks back over his shoulder and smiles. “Maybe I wouldn’t turn up."

But both of them know this isn’t true. Neither of them can even fathom breaking this routine. They wouldn’t dream of it. This is simply the way things are now - like clockwork, every Sunday, for two hours. 

This is  _their_ time.

\--

Hyunwoo thinks about being direct with Hoseok sometimes. He thinks about what would happen if he tells him he looks so good it distracts him to think about when he’s at the gym, listening to his coach scold him for eating too much or for not sleeping enough or for letting his opponent get the better of him last time he fought.

He thinks about what Hoseok would say if Hyunwoo admitted he couldn’t care less if they ever actually picked their shinai up again. That just spending time together, doing absolutely anything - doing nothing, even - would still be the highlight of his week.

He thinks about it, but the words don't ever come out, and Hoseok leaves his world completely for another seven long days.

\--

Hyunwoo misses regional competition when he gets sick, and his coach demands bed rest until further notice. There are rumours going round the other competitors that he's faking it, that he threw the competition on purpose because his game off. It isn't true, but his game is kind of weak at the moment. His mind is elsewhere, not that his coach knows why. He just furrows his brow and tells Hyunwoo to sleep and to watch training videos and to come back stronger, and he obeys for two days, but then it’s Sunday. Their time. And he can't leave Hoseok waiting, can't even  _imagine_  it. So he drags himself out of bed and over to the gym, changes into his robes and waits.

"What's wrong?" Hoseok asks, as soon as he arrives, and his face is so full of concern, real, genuine concern - for him, that Hyunwoo has never felt so vulnerable in his entire life. "Are you sick?"

Hyunwoo shrugs it off. "I'll be fine."

Hoseok shakes his head, steadfast and fussing over him. "Put your tracksuit back on."

Hyunwoo is reluctant. He doesn’t want to rest, he wants to do this, now, with Hoseok. Like always. "I'll be fine. I don't want to--"

"I'm not going anywhere.” Hosek interrupts him, hand on his arm, like he knows what is going through Hyunwoo’s mind. “I'll be right here when you come back out of the changing room. I promise."

"Okay."

They talk for a while, about nothing in particular. About missing the competition, about being sick. Hoseok asks him questions, but reveals little about his own life.

"They're cracking down on travellers," is all he will say, when Hyunwoo asks him about his week. "Chae Hyungwon's skipped town again, and they're convinced he's been giving out more watches."

"Has he?" Hyunwoo asks.

"Knowing him?” Hoseok smiles. “Probably, yeah.”

Hyunwoo thinks about this - about the power he’d feel if he owned one of the devices. Or maybe he wouldn’t feel power, maybe he’d just feel burdon. “What would you do without it?” He asks. “Would you miss it?”

“I’d miss this,” Hoseok replies, and his gaze lingers on Hyunwoo’s face. Hyunwoo tries not to show how much hearing that means, but he’s never been good at poker.

“Me too,” he admits. “A lot.”

Hoseok reaches out into the careful gap between them, the one that Hyunwoo always keeps in an effort to pretend this is still only about Kendo. Even if it is clear that neither of them believe it is. He threads his fingers between Hyunwoo’s.

"Get some rest. I'd look after you if I could stay." He says, and Hyunwoo feels like the fever is taking over, his heartbeat racing, his mouth dry. 

He wants to say, "I wish you could," but he doesn't. Part of him doesn't want to disturb what they have in case it crumbles into nothing. Part of him is just not as brave as he always thought he was. 

Hoseok says, “Same time next week?” and even after hearing those words for months and months on end, they’re still like music to his ears. 

\--

There’s a Sunday that comes round more slowly than the last seemed to. When it does, Hyunwoo is over tired from the effects of having had a bad week, but then again maybe Hoseok has had worse - he’s the one illegally time travelling, after all. 

For the first in a long time, it’s like one of their first visits: silent and focused. They fight, they fight again, they lie next to each other and force air back into their lungs, and the air fizzles with the thick tension of bad weeks, bad moods, frustration. Hyunwoo is just so fucking frustrated, and mainly at himself. 

When they head to the showers, Hoseok is quiet and Hyunwoo is angry. “Well this has been fun,” Hoseok quips as he strips out of his robes and turns on the shower next to Hyunwoo’s.

“Has it?” Hyunwoo deadpans. He knows it hasn’t been, knows it’s mostly his fault.

Hoseok shrugs, as the water starts to run over him. “I’ve spent better afternoons.”

“No one asked you to spend them here,” Hyunwoo says, because he feels like biting back, feels like an argument. The sparring wasn’t enough, apparently. 

Hoseok turns off the water and grabs his towel. He’s barely showered, but apparently being half clean is better than being here. “Maybe I won’t come back then,” he says. “That sound good to you?”

“Sounds great.” Hyunwoo turns away. Now he’s just being a dick, and he knows it, but he’s mad because their time this week is almost over and he’s ruined it, he’s ruining it right now and he can’t seem to stop.

By the time he finishes his shower, Hoseok has left him behind.

\--

Hyunwoo spends the next seven days wondering if his temper has ruined the only thing he actually truly cares about in his entire life for good.

He paces the floor as it comes up to three. He feels sick. He needs Hoseok to come, he needs to tell him the truth. He’s going to do it, he has to now. He’s going to find the damn words.

If Hoseok comes back, that is.

When Hoseok appears, Hyunwoo feels frozen with sheer relief. They stand there and stare at each other for what feels like forever, until his mind catches up with him and Hyunwoo remembers  _words._  “I didn’t mean it,” he says. “What I said. I didn’t mean it.” He reaches out, expects the worst - for Hoseok to step back, for their unspoken understanding to be gone forever, but he doesn’t. 

Hoseok sighs, letting Hyunwoo take his hand. His watch catches the sun coming in through the window on the other side of the gym. “They’re onto me, Hyunwoo,” he says. “The government know I have an illegal watch. They’re onto me and they’re tracking me, and I am risking everything by coming back here. And for what?”

When Hyunwoo kisses him, it’s an instinctive reaction. It’s the flick of a switch. He kisses Hoseok, his hands cupped around Hoseok’s face, and then, breathless, he pulls away and waits for Hoseok to push him away or shout or tell him it’s too late, but he doesn’t. Instead he grabs at Hyunwoo’s jacket and pulls him in for another kiss, and another, and another. 

The words come after, when they’re pressed up against the lockers at the back of the room, his forehead resting on Hoseok’s. He closes his eyes and whispers, “I didn’t mean it, none of it. You’re the best part of my life right now. I’ve wanted to tell you that for a long time.”

Two hours goes by too quickly.

\--

The next few weeks aren’t exactly productive for Hyunwoo’s practise. “My game is slipping,” he admits, as Hoseok scores double the amount of points Hyunwoo does and they call it a day, and retreat from the gym to the showers. “I’m never going to get to the championships. I just want to undress you when you’re in front of me out there.”

Hoseok laughs. But Hyunwoo is serious. As long as he has Hoseok - even for two hours a week - he’s the most important thing he has. He’s  _everything_. 

“What about your other opponents? Your coach?” Hoseok looks like sin standing under the water. They’ve been in the showers an unnecessarily long time, and Hyunwoo is forever grateful that no one else trains down here on a Sunday. “Do you want  _them_  naked too?"

Hyunwoo groans. “Now you’ve made me picture my coach naked and it’s totally ruining my mood.” 

Hoseok just laughs at him. “Everyone with talent finds themselves in a slump at some point,” he says. ”But at least you have the advantage of knowing it doesn’t last.” Hyunwoo must look blank because Hoseok adds, “Since you end up as a noted Kendoka from this school and all.”

“I forgot that you know that,” Hyunwoo admits as Hoseok slides a towel over his shoulders and distracts him some more. 

Sometimes he forgets how weird their relationship is completely, and then sometimes it comes rushing back to him like a sobering gush of air, and he’ll be on the bus to his aunt’s house (he can only avoid her invitations for so long) and suddenly realise that the man he’s in love with (because he is, he knows it for sure now), is thirty years in the future. 

It doesn’t get much weirder than that.

 

\--

 

Hyunwoo is awarded the next dan grade and his coach suggests they go out for drinks with some of the other members of the dojo to celebrate, but Hyunwoo’s mind is elsewhere. He picks up food on his way to the dojo: hot, freshly cooked beef, and a spicy soup with seafood. He has to wait for the soup, eyes on the time the whole time, and Hoseok is already getting changed into his protective gear when Hyunwoo arrives.

“What’s this?” He asks, as Hyunwoo puts the hot containers down and throws Hoseok his sweater. 

“We’re not fighting today, we’re celebrating." He grins. “Don’t bother changing, come and eat. Turns out I’m not a complete lost cause for my coach yet.”

“You never were.” Hoseok says. He quickly changes back into his street clothes, his hair ruffled from his sweater. He looks good and it makes Hyunwoo swell with pride, just like he had at his technical assessment two days before. “You have bloodshot eyes,” Hoseok points out, as he sits down next to Hyunwoo on the floor.

“Too much beer,” Hyunwoo explains. He digs into the carton of beef and offers some to Hoseok. “I had my official celebration last night with some of the other guys. But I wanted to celebrate with you too. That’s more important.”

Hoseok smiles, closing his eyes and sighing contently as he eats the celebratory meal. “Thirty year old food has never tasted so good,” he says, and they laugh together at the madness of the fact that it’s  _true._

\--

Hoseok sits down on the floor beside Hyunwoo and straps his watch onto his wrist, about to leave after another session one Sunday, and Hyunwoo watches him intently, focused on the gentle way in which he changes the numbers on the watch. He does it so slowly, and Hyunwoo knows it’s just to drag out their time together. He’s grateful, because saying goodbye is getting harder and harder with every passing visit.

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” he says, looking up. “Who were they? Your great lost love that got you so focused on your Kendo training?”

“Hmm?” Hyunwoo isn’t expecting a question, and especially not this one. This one doesn’t make sense, because he hasn’t got a lost love, and Kendo has just kind of always been there in the background of his life since his father took him as a child. “I’ve never been in love before, not until now,” he says. 

“Oh.” Hoseok licks at his lip thoughtfully. But I thought you’d said...  Nevermind” 

He trails off, and Hyunwoo nudges him. “You thought I what?” he asks, running his hand over Hoseok’s knee. He doesn’t want him to go, not today. He never wants him to go. But apparently there are rules to this, and fucking with them can mess up the entire universe. 

Hyunwoo doesn’t really want to be the cause of some sort of major disaster, so he tries to respect the fact that time rules them, even if it makes him frustrated as hell. 

“Maybe I just got confused,” Hoseok says, and places his own hand on Hyunwoo’s hip. “Hey, kiss me before I have to go,” he says, and Hyunwoo does just as he’s asked.

\--

Hyunwoo keeps a track of the news stories that come and go about the new fangled time travel devices that are still showing up even since Chae Hyungwon and his group of disgraced scientists were imprisoned for their secret projects on the possibility of moving through time. 

“There was an article about Chae Hyungwon in the newspaper today,” he tells Hoseok one Sunday. “One of his devices has just turned up in a police evidence room after a car accident. Everyone is theorising how, since the government took all his watches away when they got him.”

“It's probably not one he made in this time," Hoseok says, head rested on Hyunwoo's shoulder. "I'm surprised more haven't appeared from the future already, to be honest."

"It sounds like a lot of stuff happens in the next thirty years." Hyunwoo nudges him.

"Yeah. They put out warnings about him every single day in my time.” Hoseok stretches his arms and stands up. “It's constantly drummed into you: don’t take a watch from CHW. It’s illegal. Bla bla bla."

Hyunwoo frowns. This sounds serious, it sounds  _dangerous_ , and he says as much in between rushed kisses. It's almost five, it's never enough time together. '“Are they still tracking you?" He asks, as Hoseok puts his watch on, the usual routine. "The government spies?”

“Yeah.” Hoseok pushes a hand through his hair. There is a sheen of perspiration on his forehead; they fought hard today, but that's probably from what they did afterwards. He looks so good that Hyunwoo wants to refuse to let him go back to the future in a few minutes. It isn't fair, he thinks. But he can't say that, he knows how Hoseok feels about the laws of time and why they need to follow them. He's already risking so much, it wouldn't be fair to ask him to stay longer. 

Hyunwoo rubs at his face, stressed out, worried. “Is there anything we can do to stop them? Anything I can do to--”

“Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine." Hoseok interrupts him, a bright smile on his face that looks all sorts of fake. "I’ve gotten away with this stuff for a long time now,” he points out. "It's going to work out. It has to."

(He's wrong.)

 

\--

 

Hyunwoo kneels and he waits. 

And waits.

And he keeps waiting. Thinks, Hoseok must be on his way, he must be running late. And then, he thinks, we’ll laugh about this later. But later arrives, and later passes, and all that Hyunwoo can think is  _please come_. Please come back to me.

At five o-clock he stands up, his legs sore from sitting in the same position for so long. He stands up on unsure feet, changes back into his street clothes in silence and says a silent prayer that this is all a misunderstanding - that next week, Hoseok will appear with an apology or an explanation, and things will go on as they should do.

The next seven days go by so slowly it’s almost physically painful. When Sunday rolls around, Hyunwoo changes, kneels, waits again, hardly able to breathe. He’s angry and confused and worried, all at the same time. Because Hoseok doesn’t come back, not this Sunday and not the next, or the one after that.

If Hyunwoo thought he got distracted by Hoseok when he was there, it feels a thousand times worse now he isn’t.

He messes up in training - totally thrown off his game. His coach is mad at him, and his mother says she’s worried about him, and none of them  _understand_. 

He’s alone with the emptiness, but still, every Sunday, he sits in the dojo alone and waits for Hoseok, just in case.

\--

His coach gives him an ultimatum two months later: buck up his ideas, or he can give up on his dreams of competing at the highest level forever.

“Fine,” he says, his temper getting the better of him like it has before. “I couldn’t care less.”

His aunt scolds him more gently. Tells him he’s a silly boy, even though he’s twenty five and she hasn’t called him a boy in forever. She makes his favourite stew and asks him what he’s worked so hard for, if not to persevere? “Everyone has a difficult time,” she says. “Everyone has a slump. But not everyone can bounce back.”

Hoseok had said something like that once. He’d been right back then, and Hyunwoo’s aunt is right now. Losing Hoseok has been heartbreaking, he can’t allow himself to lose Kendo as well.

So, he finds the words he needs, apologises to his coach and promises him that he’s ready to focus, that he truly  _wants_ this. 

He makes it to the next stage of the national competition within three weeks. And that is only the beginning. 

\--

By the time he makes it to the national team, a year later, there is a photo of him on the wall of his hometown dojo.

He gives an interview to the sports page of a national newspaper during the World Championships and they ask what his motivation was to focus on his rise to the top of the sport. “Lost love,” he says, a smile playing upon his lips. It's a throwaway comment, kind of evasive and at the same time totally honest, but once the words escape his lips, it all makes sense. In that very moment, sat there in a harshly lit press area with the other Kendoka, he realises that this is  _it._

 _This_ is the tragic story they’re going to tell the future generations of Kendoka. This is why Hoseok remembers him so well. Why he felt the need to come back and meet him. Of course the story resonated with him, he  _is_ the story, even if he didn't know it.

The rest of the interview goes by in a blur.

 

##### \--

 

Hyunwoo lies on top of the duvet on the bed in his hotel room in his team tracksuit and stares at the ceiling. His mind has been racing for the last twenty four hours, but he's still managed to nail his game. Thank goodness.

Still, without a doubt, he would give back every trophy, every endorsement, every single match he’s won, for two hours more on a Sunday with Hoseok, but he knows now that he can’t. 

Hoseok always said that there are laws of time travel: the timeline will always return to the path it was set for. And it was set for Hoseok to leave him. It was set for him to become a world champion. And it was set for his story of heartbreak to resonate with Hoseok, long before he would ever know it was losing  _him_ that spurred Hyunwoo on. This was the only way for them to meet at all.

“Fuck you and your damn laws,” Hyunwoo says aloud to the ceiling. He’s speaking to Chae Hyungwon, or he’s speaking to time itself. He doesn’t know, really, he just needs to get it out, he needs the frustration out of him.

At least, Hyunwoo thinks, as he puts on his mask and picks up his shinai in the changing room of the stadium the next afternoon, ready to head back out for the last day of competition, they got their time together, even if it will never feel like enough. 

Regardless, Hyunwoo will wait at the dojo in his old neighbourhood the next Sunday, as soon as he returns from Tokyo. Dressed and kneeling, hoping for Hoseok to come back to him. He has to be there, even if its pointless, even if their time is meant to be over. 

 

(He closes his eyes and holds his breath as the clock turns to 3.02pm, and when he breathes out again, he hears the creak of a floorboard behind him.)


End file.
